On this week’s episode of Leader of the Pack, Tom has a sit-down Zoom conversation with Dot Sheehan, the President and Founder of Operation Hat Trick. New Hampshire native, Dot talks with host Tom Sega about her professional beginnings as one of the first female agents in sports, growing in entrepreneurship, excelling in her professional career as the Senior Associate Athletics Director for External Relations at the University of New Hampshire, to ultimately becoming the Founder and President of Non-Profit Organization, Operation Hat Trick.   

Background on Dot Sheehan  

Dot begins the conversation by stating she was born in New York City but spent most of her childhood in New Hampshire. Coming from an Italian family, she explains the difficulties her mother had when moving from the big city of New York to the small-town feel of New Hampshire. After a brief overview of Dot’s background, she dives deeper into her role as the first female agent in sports. She remembers going to her son’s basketball camp and meeting the directors of the camp, who were a couple of NBA players for the Boston Celtics and Golden State Warriors. After a few days at the camp, the NBA players approached Dot to fulfill an order of t-shirts for the camp her son was attending. After that, she became both players’ full-time marketing agent. This means Dot was not negotiating contracts with the teams but rather the marketing contracts between the players and 3rd party advertisers that wanted her athletes to represent their company, brands, and products.   

Senior Associate Athletics Director for External Relations  

Dot explains her role with external relations as any task or event that affects the greater public. She mentions that a large part of her role was selling suite-level tickets for the hockey games and other activities such as fundraising to get the funds for new projects in the athletic department. Dot goes on to explain an intricate part of her job. Tom asks her to describe the fundraising process and how the school would get the funds for new projects. Dot explains that the school would need to cut sports programs to allocate funds to other places. For example, in her time at UNH, her office was forced to cut the baseball program. She mentions that it was challenging to find practice time with no indoor space and outdoor fields that were covered in snow until late April. Tom revisits Dot’s experience fundraising and selling tickets by asking her about selling season tickets. She mentions that selling season tickets isn’t too difficult when the team succeeds and consistently makes Frozen Four appearances. Tom then shifts gears to asking Dot about the football stadium and specifically the under-par press box that she previously mentioned. She recalls a certain instance where ESPN came to shoot a game and needed to bring their own generators to charge all of their equipment. Dot continues to explain some of the improvements they made to the facilities and their impacts on the program. She references that ESPN was not delighted with the facilities when they had to come to record a game, but after the upgrades were made, they enjoyed going to UNH to record their football games in a new press box.  

Operation Hat Trick  

Tom then switches up the conversation by asking Dot about the creation of Operation Hat Trick. Dot says that she was listening to a radio station in the car one day when she heard that the number one thing injured veterans want when they come back is just a hat to cover the wounds they may have encountered. Dot’s initial reaction to this was, “How hard is it to get these guys and gals a hat, like seriously, how hard can it be? It’s just a hat!” After this reaction, she envisioned getting these hats to the veterans who needed them. This was when the non-profit Operation Hat Trick was founded. Dot mentions that its business model is unique from other non-profit organizations because most of its revenue comes from apparel sales rather than private donations. She explains where their apparel is sold and available for purchase, and this list includes over 500 universities, NHL, NFL, and MLB team stores around the country and online. Dot emphasizes that Operation Hat Trick has donated over $2.5 million to support 80 different veterans’ organizations across 30 states. Tom proceeds to ask Dot specifically about the organizations they donate to help wounded veterans. She says that out of the 80 organizations Operation Hat Trick has donated to, a staggering 40 of those were just last year.  

This was an extremely interesting conversation with an exceptional leader whose experiences stretch across multiple industries, fields, and sports. From being the first female to represent professional athletes to creating a non-profit organization to help provide apparel to wounded veterans. Dot Sheehan’s work is greatly appreciated by a wide variety of people. Duluth Pack is beyond proud to be partnered with Dot Sheehan and Operation Hat Trick to support wounded veterans. Thank you, Dot, for taking the time to share your story with us and for all the work you do.